Amariani Garcia
Lantern Staff
ED290, Integrated Learning Through the Arts, a new course offered at Butler, has expanded the horizons for classroom expectations for Shellie Gutierrez, department chair of teacher education.
Students should expect field trips and hands-on experience at the Wichita Symphony, Wichita City Arts, Exploration Place and Botanica, although Gutierrez plans to add more organizations to have a wide variety to choose from.
The idea came from Wichita State when they noticed Butler was missing a two to three credit course in the education program. Wichita State offered Gutierrez to pick an Art Methods course, so she ran with the idea.
The students create lessons for the children to learn through the arts. The education majors took a field trip to Wichita City Arts where they created sensory boards that included the five senses. Students had to find creative ways to showcase taste, touch, smell, sound and sight.
Butler students learn why children become excited to learn by incorporating the arts, and they experience it firsthand. The course teaches students how to incorporate the arts through learning for their students, and also by learning creatively.
“If it’s not fun, then in my opinion it’s not learning,” Gutierrez said.
The class transfers to Wichita State, Emporia, Fort Hays and Friends as an Arts Methods course. It is still being discussed with other four year colleges if transferable.
“I wasn’t going to offer any class that didn’t transfer everywhere,” Gutierrez said.
The class has no prerequisites to take and is a three credit course. Gutierrez wants to encourage students to take the course in the following semester, particularly those studying in education, but also wants students from other majors to join.
Gutierrez encourages creativity in her classroom by not allowing students to submit papers, but by creating a project reflecting on what they have learned. Projects could be anything ranging from posters, game boards, investigation, puzzles and anything imaginable. Gutierrez has projects sitting in her classroom ranging from an ice cream cone with reflection statements on the sprinkles, a Jenga game with different components of their reflection, or a tub full of sand searching for the bottled notes with summary reflection. The creative standpoint of the projects allows the student endless ideas to interpret their homework.
“People put more effort into projects that they’re able to express themselves creatively than if I just said ‘write a paper for me’,” Gutierrez said. “We don’t use textbooks, and we don’t have worksheets. We don’t take test in any of our education classes; they are all project based or hands on.”
At the end of the course, the students will receive a breakfast with the community partners they worked with in an advisory board breakfast that would open conversation for constructive criticism for the next semester.
Gutierrez can be contacted by email at sgutier@butlercc.edu or by phone at (316) 322-3140 for more information about the course.
